THE CASE AGAINST MR. BENCE JONES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 411, 25 February 1881, Page 7

THE CASE AGAINST MR. BENCE JONES.

We take the following from a recent number of the Cork Examiner : — Clcnakilty, Friday night.— To-day the following notice was posted on the Church piers of this town :—": — " Stand and read this, sir. this is a caution to the Clonakilty tenants who are daily bowing to Jones — but I have my doubts whether it is in love or fear — not to dare give him one penny over Griffith's valuation ; or indeed, if they do, whether it is by the fireside after eating their supper, or when going for their little ' firsouchs' (little heifers) in the evening, they will have new news in the morning. This is just as good as if the fatal shots are put through." The greatest excitement was caused through the town, and, it being market day, large groups were everywhere discussing the incident. For the past three or four weeks it was freely rumoured that Mr. Bence Jones's tenants, whose gale day comes on next Tuesday, were determined to proffer only Griffith's valuution, and if a clear receipt were not given for that figure, to bring back the money and abide by the consequences. These rumours were every day growing thicker, and culminated to-day in the threatening letter referred to. A meeting of the Land League was at once convened, Father O'Leary being present in the chair. A resolution was carried unanimously condemning the threatening notices, ajd a second calling on the tenants to pay only Griffith's valuation. In putting the resolution the rev. gentleman said : Gentlemen, I am glad you have come forward so soon publicly to dissociate ourselves from, and distinctly to condemn, the notices that have been posted through the town to-day threatening bodily injury to any of Mr. Bence Jones's tenants who would pay the full rent. The policy threatened in these notices is not the policy of the Land League. We reprobate and denounce outrages of all kinds as strongly as any men in the land, we care not who they may be. At our la»t meeting we offered a reward for any information leading to the conviction of the parties who broke some gates on the night of the Roscarbery meeting. We have since heard, indeed, that there was not a shilling's damage done on the occasion, but still we showed that we had done our part. Still I must say that, stiongly as I condemn those notices regarding Mr. Bence Jones, I am not at all surprised that wild words should be used when his name is in question ; for undoubtedly Mr. Bence Jones is, to put it mildly, an exceedingly unpopular man. I certainly do not know anyone in any part of the county who has earned for himself such general and deep detestation. Nor is this a matter of to-day or yesterday. It has prevailed as long as I can remember. Twenty years ago his life was threatened in this very town, and I have beard it frequently said, that but for the late Father

Madden be probably wonld not have gone home alive on that occasion. And the reason for this detestation is not far to seek. Mr. Bence Jones seems to combine in himself all those qualities which have provoked the present crisis. As a harsh landlord he seems to hold the first place. He has been an exterminator on a large scale. He himself farms a thousand acre", which contained the homesteads of many a happy familj who are now scattoied to the ends of the earth. He has been a rackrenting landlord. His tenants pay the highest rents of any in the south of Ireland, and we all know that their heads are bowed down aud their snirits depressed under the hard yoke of his rackrents. The rules of his estate are the worst of their class. Whenever a tenant dies, his successor, son, wife, or brother, must pay an increase of rent, sometimes to the extent of nearly 100 per cent. When poor Michael White, of Cloeheen, died a few years ago, he raised the rent on Mrs. White from £50 to £80. When Jatrick Hayes died, and for many years before his death, Mr. Bence Jones did not fail to send messengers to inquire whether he had as yet died. He raised the rent on the farm, where he had built a dwelling-heuse and out-offices at a cost of £300, from 25s to £2 sn acre, and insisted, on threat of eviction, that he should take a lease of 31 years, which confiscated the improvements. It is only the other day — when Mrs. Walsh, of Ballinscarthy, died — that he sent for her son, and asked him to consent to an increase of £15 a year. I mentioned this latter fact only yesterday to a gentleman who has two thousand a year landed property in this couDty, who lately forgave his tenants a half year's rent, though they held their farms for the mere fraction over Griffith's valuation, and who offered them leases for one hundred years at the present rents, consenting to pay half of all rates. When I told him this fact he said, " Quern, detu wdt perdere priut dementat"— " When the gods wish to destroy one they take away his senses." I cannot go through the history of all his farms, nor is it necessary, for they have all nearly the same tale to tell, aad in this case we may well act on the principle "Ex vno disce omnet" Take, then, that farm which has been vacant for more than a twelvemonth, and in which I lately saw one of the most luxuriant crops of thistles and dockleaves that it has ever been my lot to witness. The farm consists of about twenty acres, and is within a short distance of the town. The valuation is 10b and acre. It was held some years since by a man named Dempsey at 17s 6d an acre. On Dempsey's death, according to the rales of the estate, the rent was raised to £2 an acre. Mrs. Dempsey, unable to pay the increased rent, fled the farm, and it was given to Holtsbaum. He too fled, and the farm passed on to Bateman. Bateman failed, leaving a year's re at urjpaid, and it was taken by M'Carthy. M'Carthy soon failed, carrying with him the year's rent unpaid, and there since it lies. In this populous district, where there is quite a mania, where the goodwill of a farm held under Lord Shannon will bring twelve or fourteen years' purchase, there it lies, unoccupied, unsought for, with quite a thicket of thistles, and by no means unknown to the cattle of tinkers and trespassers. Mr. Bence Jones never gave a lease before 1870. Since that time he has insisted that those tenants who had largely improved their farms should take leases for thirty-one years ingeniously contrived to make the Act of 1870 a dead letter. Being thus notoriously an exterminating, rackrenting, rent-raising, confiscating landlord, how is it any wonder that the tenants should view him in the light illustrated in the following anecdote, which a Cork gentleman lately told me ? He asked a tenant of Mr. Bence Jones who was his landlord. The tenant answered, in Irish, An dlabhoil — Satan. I had this from the gentleman's own lips, and he is alive to bear witness of it. But it is not only as a landlord tliat lie is regarded as harsh and despotic. Take one of the last cases in which he adiudicated as a magistrate on the bench. He fined Cornelius Donovan £5 for selling a glass of beer on a Sunday, and got tbc fine recorded on the license. Mr. Beccher, the only other magibtrate present — a highly educated gentleman and a good landlord — dissented, but Mr. Bence Jones would not listen to bis remonstrances. On an appeal, Donovan's fine was reduced to a minimum and was not recorded oa the license. Look at Mr. Jones's actiou la t year, when the people were threatened with famine ; look at his action last year when tbe people were threatened. He went over to England, denied the existence of distress in the district, and, on liit> return home, sought to put a stop to the relief works, which had kept many families in town from eithf-r dying of starvation or being thrown on the rates. Then look at the way he writes of himself — of Ireland. He is fond of posing himself before an Englibh audience, in the pages of Nacmillan, as the son of a gay young officer, but he is maivellously silent about bib grandfather. Billy Jones, the well-known Town Clerk of Cork city when Cork was a close corporation. (Cheers and laughter.) How he writes about Ireland — he loudly expresses his contempt for his brother magistrates on the bench, accuses Irishmen of sloveuh'nebs, idleness, diunkcnruss, :md dirt, and charges them, especially the clergymen of tbc Disestablished Church, with beiug nothing better than liars : and yet the man who speaks in this way wrote to the Times a. few weeks ago that potatoes were being sold this year iv Ireland for about two pence per stone — which is about as true as if he said that all liishmen are about four feet in height — and that he loses £800 a year in improving his tenants' farms— which is about sis trnc as that he gives £800 a year to the poor of tins town ; and we know on Tucs-diy last, when iheie was question of the baronial guarantee for ihi- laihvay, Mr. Wiight, the eminent solicitor — who, if anyone, knows Mr. Hence Jones veiy well — stated in a full court, and morethan once. thai Mr. Beuce Jones was a liar. He styles himself, in his late diatriij igaiubt Ireland, as a man who has tiied to do his duty. Do his duly ! Gianied. li>'t Cioniwell did his duty at Drogheda ; Captain Cnuipbell did lii> duty at Glencoe ; Governor Eyre did his duty in Jamaica ; aud I have no objection that he should go down to ]iobr> v rity with tht»e worthies in the category of men who did their duty. If it be a duty to depopulate the country he certainly has done his part, ami his la»t aniclc tells us tLat he is prepared to do more. Ah we read in Holy 'Wiit that the heart of Pharaoh was hardened not to let the people go, bo assuredly Mr. Bence Jones's heart iB hardened not to allow the peoplo etay. If it be a duty to be well versed in the

business of rack-renting he certainly has done his part, for Mr. Beace Jones has raised rack-renting to the level of a science. He is no chimerical operator. He is by no means in a hurry. His selfishness is not confined to the present. He looks far into the future. He takes a pleasure in dealing with a rich tenant who comes into his hands as a cat might play with a mouse ; lie will praise him for his honesty aud industry ; he will encourage him to make improvements ; he will ask after his family ; and then, when the proper time has come, down Mr. Bence Jones swoops with an increase of rent which will have confiscated all that the tenant possesses, and will make himself and his family for ever his slaves. " There is no tenant-right on my estates," " I can deal with my farms," he said to a clergyman, "as with any other chattels." That was was said in reference to a farm held by Edward Lucy, in Castlelisky, in this parish. When the farm came into Mr. Jones's possession, he began by asking an increase of 6s. per acre, saying that on the death of Edward Lucy, who was then advanced in life, he would add at least another 6s. per acre. Lucy gave up the farm and died of a broken heart. Such being the facts about Mr. Bence Jones, how can we be surprised that in the present excited state of the country even these notices, which we strongly condemn, should be posted ? But whilst we condemn outrages or threats of outrage on Mr. Bence Jones or his bullocks, we loudly applaud the determination of his tenants to refuse paying their rackrents. Too long have they been slaves. Fow is their time to assert their freedom. If, according to the high authority of the Bishop of Ossory, rackrenting landlords are bound to make restitution, I would ask is Mr. Bence Jones more entitled to get than to give 1 Jn what measure he meted to others in the days of his power, after that measure shall it be meted to him to-day. The applause of the county, of the entire courtry, shall follow his tenants asserting their independence. The hearts of many a brave exile in New York and New Zealand will throb within them with joy when they read that the whirligig of time has brought about its revenge, and money in thousands of pounds ohall not be wanting if necessary to sustain them in the struggle against one who was so long sucb a despot in his sphere, but whose despotism is fast passing away (immense cheering). The League then made arrangements about the monster meeting which is to be held at Ballanascarthy, near Mr. Bence Jones's property, at which it is expected there will be 20,000 persons present.